Saṃyuktāgama (368)

Thus have I heard. At one time, the Buddha was dwelling in Śrāvastī, at Anāthapiṇḍika’s Grove in the Jeta Garden. At that time, the World-Honored One addressed the bhikṣus: “You should cultivate immeasurable samādhi, diligently focusing your mindfulness. Having cultivated immeasurable samādhi and diligently focused your mindfulness, thus will reality manifest. How does reality manifest? Aging-and-death manifests as it truly is; up to volitional formations manifest as it truly is. These phenomena are impermanent, conditioned, and with outflows. Thus does reality manifest.” After the Buddha had spoken this sūtra, the bhikṣus, hearing what the Buddha had said, rejoiced and respectfully carried it out.

Explanation: The World-Honored One told the bhikṣus: You should cultivate immeasurable samādhi, diligently and single-mindedly focusing your mindfulness on the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination within samādhi. After diligently focusing your mindfulness on the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination within immeasurable samādhi, the meaning of the Dharma will then manifest in your mind as it truly is. How does it manifest as it truly is? The phenomenon of aging-and-death manifests in the mind as it truly is: the phenomenon of aging-and-death, the cause of aging-and-death, the conditions for aging-and-death, how aging-and-death arises, how aging-and-death ceases, and the Noble Eightfold Path cultivated to cease aging-and-death—all manifest as they truly are, becoming exceedingly clear in the mind. Up to birth, becoming, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense bases, name-and-form, consciousness, and volitional formations—each of these phenomena separately manifests in the mind. The phenomena themselves, the causes and conditions that produce them, how they arise, how they cease, and the Noble Eightfold Path cultivated to cease them—all manifest in the mind as they truly are. These phenomena are all impermanent, conditioned, and with outflows. If this principle can manifest in the mind thus as it truly is, one will attain the great wisdom of liberation.

“As it truly is” means the original state of the Dharma—the true state unknown to ordinary people, not the superficial phenomena widely known, but rather characterized by arising and ceasing, change, impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self. When the Dharma can manifest thus in the mind, wisdom arises in an instant, and the mind abides in the state of liberation.